Savvy Aviation Mike Busch Videos - Thoughts?

WDD

WDD

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Vintage Snazzy (so my adult children say)
What do people think of Mike Busch and his maintenance videos?

Spot on, a bit off, or “I’d never do anything he recommends”?

What say the collective?
 
I like him for sure in context.

Without context, they can seem a little out there.
 
Would you make it standard/just make the assumption to run your 2000 hour engine to 3000 hours for example?
 
He rubs a lot of people (especially A&P mechanics) the wrong way since he has a low opinion of some common maintenance practices, especially those which involve hunches or tradition. He's arguably the high-priest of LOP and a very big proponent of data and "differential diagnosis" type thinking, which I appreciate. I don't think he's nearly as down on mechanics as some of them think but rather wants a higher standard of diagnosis and evidence-based practice. I own all of his books and I listen to his YouTube presentations when I get the time. Overall, I think he's a pretty positive factor in the aviation world and I'm glad he's around. Others may disagree.
 
Yeah, I don't understand the hate, but he does have a few haters. I think most of them (as is so often the case) dislike what they think he's saying, having not actually listened to what he's saying.

WDD said:
Would you make it standard/just make the assumption to run your 2000 hour engine to 3000 hours for example?
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Yes. This goes along with monitoring things like metal in the filter/screen, oil consumption, and borescoping the cylinders. A regularly flown & maintained engine should be able to make double TBO unless it's one of the more highly stressed/turbo models. It seldom happens because most engines spend a lot of time sitting, or get overhauled when lapping a valve or doing a ring flush would've saved it. My engine, in spite of being overhauled almost 20 years and 1200 hours ago, measured to factory new specifications. Almost a shame to overhaul it, but from an economic/resale standpoint it didn't make sense to me to tear it down and not do the little bit extra to call it a major overhaul.

If you haven't heard his webinar about the flying club that took an O-320 (or maybe it was a 360) to 5000 hours, it's a good one.
 
Jim K said:
engine should be able to make double TBO
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Got it - good news. I wonder if I can get our club to do that. Planes fly constantly, low chance for corrosion. They overhaul all planes at TBO. This also changes what I’ll do on my plane.

Jim K said:
webinar about the flying club that took an O-320 (or maybe it was a 360) to 5000 hours,
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I saw that - amazing. (I’m Thanksgiving break binging his videos).
 
AvNavCom said:
He rubs a lot of people (especially A&P mechanics) the wrong way since he has a low opinion of some common maintenance practices, especially those which involve hunches or tradition.
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No hate, just humor. He has never worked professionally as an A&P. So he has very limited experience with those “common mx practices” as they are not listed in the manuals. And he only knows the manuals and acts accordingly. Same with flying beyond TBO which has been around long before he even soloed. But if you prefer to get your knowledge from a professional IT guy, who repackaged/rebranded a bunch of existing free aircraft mx stuff and sold it at a profit, rock on. I can’t fault him for wanting to make a buck. ;)
 
I find his video online too long. Just the first part if there's any info of use, then it's just chatter.

He's also running out of things to do in his video I think. Not surprising since these GA planes are living relics.
 
SebIp said:
I find his video online too long. Just the first part if there's any info of use, then it's just chatter.
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That’s opposite most of the YT videos I try to watch. They prattle on incessantly for what seems like forever before actually divulging any worthwhile information or talking about what they are going to talk about. It bad enough that I either just skip through most of it or just kill it and do something else. I think they don’t get paid for short videos, so if you’ve got five minutes of info to talk about you need to stretch it out to 30. Kind of like Expedition Unknown or Curse of Oak Island… both of which my wife loves and I find painful to watch.

Ok, rant over, I’ll return you to the thread topic. Oh, Mike Busch? I’ve listened to a couple of his EAA presentations. Most of it seems to be pretty common sense stuff, too bad he seems to have substantially less familiarity with Rotax engines… but he’s certainly not alone in that respect.
 
Love his columns. They’ve saved me loads by teaching me to manage my dealings with shops.

As for his videos, I like the content for the same reason, but he talks too darn slow. As Hang 4 mentioned, it helps to play them faster than 1X.
 
Mike has good info. But wow does he talk and talk and talk. For that reason I rarely listen to his videos.
 
I like the Ask The A&P podcast, but can only listen for 10 to 15 minutes at a time. They need more energy in their voices, instead of sounding like NPR.
 
One has to take Mike Busch with a grain of salt. He claims more knowledge that he actually possesses. He is an IT guy who gets into aircraft maintenance biz later in his life. He tends to extrapolate his limited experience, focused on Cessna's and Continental engines, to everything else. For years he tried to claim that running any aircraft engine at CHT's above about 380F or so, would kill them. Not true for Lycomings. He finally backed off that after a decade of being wrong. I have seen a number of pre-buy reviews of Comanches done by Busch and his people and they are expensive garbage, but for Cessna's and Cirrus's, he might be great.

Philosophically, I agree with much of what he says, but often his criticism of mechanics misses the mark as he has never had to run a shop -- or even work in one -- and have to balance the needs of safety, legality, the owner, and the financial realities of running a business. One can't run a maintenance shop on the my-way-or-the-runway method and still keep the doors open.
 
He has a folksy voice and speaking style a lot of people like. Like any advice, the receiver has to evaluate its accuracy and usefulness.
 
WDD said:
Got it - good news. I wonder if I can get our club to do that. Planes fly constantly, low chance for corrosion. They overhaul all planes at TBO. This also changes what I’ll do on my plane.


I saw that - amazing. (I’m Thanksgiving break binging his videos).
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O-haul at TBO is introducing new modes of failure. One of Mike's older and well known failure analysis deals with the 'bathtub curve of failure'. Ask the club members to look into that.
 
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Hang 4 said:
Speed at 1.5 to 2X. Concepts make sense for the most part, but must be hard for him to get his oversize ego through the door.
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Hahaha you’re not wrong, if a little on the rough side. My take is that he is an important voice in challenging many of the dominant narratives in engine operation and aircraft maintenance, and has added a ton to the aviation-maintenance conversation that is good, but his delivery is bad. From LOP ops to on-condition fixes to engine infant mortality to maintenance induced failures, I really appreciate his contribution. He once personally gave me some advice on a plane and was kind of a jerk about it. I ignored him, and later came to regret that decision! He was right, although his bedside manner, so to speak, left something to be desired. That pretty much sums up his presentations and overall delivery in general, I’d say.

All that said, I don’t really see the point of being a Savvy “subscriber”. Maybe an actual Savvy user could tell us what value they get out of it.

PS - On the subject of changing the dominant maintenance narrative, John Deakin deserves a shout-out. His Pelican Perch column and specifically “Those Fire Breathing Turbos” are so good I have returned to them many times. Are they still up somewhere, I hope?
 
AA5Bman said:
All that said, I don’t really see the point of being a Savvy “subscriber”. Maybe an actual Savvy user could tell us what value they get out of it.
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I’ve subscribed to his Breakdown plan for maybe 10 years, starting when it was a free add-on for Global (underwriters) insurance customers. I’ve needed it once and, while the guy on the phone was very helpful and friendly, he didn’t ultimately help the situation at all (a field wire for the alternator that was intermittently grounding out). Seems to me the symptoms I described should have put that on the differential diagnosis list but I’m not an A&P. That’s an N=1. I still carry the subscription mainly because I do a good amount of cross country and at least want access to a list of competent A&Ps wherever I may break down.

Although I have a borescope and use it fairly regularly, I choose not to upload my pictures to their database; I feel like he’s getting a “free” library of pix and I’m not sure I see how that benefits me but I may be missing the obvious.
 
AA5Bman said:
He once personally gave me some advice on a plane and was kind of a jerk about it. I ignored him, and later came to regret that decision! He was right, although his bedside manner, so to speak, left something to be desired.
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I wasn’t going to chime in on this thread, because I typically want to only add constructive content.

I found a plane I liked. Most of the features I wanted and a decent deal. A prior buyer had walked away from the plane after a prebuy.

-I reached out to Saavy about their opinions on logbook audit to determine if I wanted to proceed with a prebuy. They suggested I walk away.
-I did my own research in parallel. I even reached out to the prior buyer and then spoke with his A&P to see why they declined the purchase.

I decided to spend money on my own prebuy, then turned it into an annual after purchase. 500 hours later and I’m happy.

Some would say “if you were going to ignore Saavy, then why ask”? Because I did not know what I was going to do, and I didn’t know what I didn’t know. It was part of the learning process, and their input was part of my investment safety net.

My advice is to use your experts; learn from them. Read a lot too. If you have common sense, apply it. If you have mechanical aptitude, apply it as well. If you are lacking in one or both, then rely more heavily on your hired guns, especially if you don’t have time, patience, or aptitude to seek and soak up the knowledge that’s out there. Ain’t nothing wrong with that, we’re all built different.
 
On my A&P forum, whenever someone brings up this topic, invariably there is a loud chorus of mechanics saying that no Savvy customers are welcome, or Savvy customers' aircraft are dragged out onto the ramp in their current state of disassembly should Savvy be interjected into the relationship between shop and owner.
I wonder if anyone has experience with this.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I wonder if anyone has experience with this.
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I never denied service to any Savvy customer or MB disciple. Nor do I recall anyone in my mx network of same. Matter of fact most of my owner-assist people came from that side of the tracks. But once they realized there was no secret squirrel magic involved, they simply started on their own journey of discovery.

However, I have heard interesting stories when they were called in as a hired gun over 3rd party mx issue. Having done similar oversight work, I think what you heard is probably legit. Theres always several ways to approach these situations. But to come in with a chip on your shoulder and a bit of MB bravado, usually doesnt give the best result. And that goes for any mx disagreements even when the fault is obviously on the mechanic/shop side.
 
It’s possible I may the last person on earth that has not seen a MB video.

Likely worth while for me to watch the Scope video.

It is a real pain dealing with folks who say “ MB says never pull a cylinder”.

Scenario:

Mag Drop - Left Mag - cold cylinder check identified jug

Recurrent - plugs, leads, mag diagnosed and found ok.

Oil consumption high

Lower plug on #X jug oil fouls. Piston tops are wet.

Static RPM - low

Compression Check 35/80 out the Breather


So now the owner “ MB says never pull etc etc “.

What would you do?

Sign Annual because the previous owner says it gets better?
 
Busch would say ring-flush.

Other popular thing he talks about is valve lapping, if you hear it out of intake or exhaust.

I would do these myself (under supervision) as an effort to avoid $$. The lapping I would try if staking first didn’t work. Of course only if the valve had a symmetrical pattern (since I bought a borescope and can check).

I’m not a MB naysayer nor diehard. He’s done a lot to educate airplane owners. But you have to respect the guy who wrenches on your plane and signs your log-book, because if he or she is decent, you don’t want to insult their intelligence. There’s a “bedside manner” to making sure your bird gets the best care possible. A diplomatic owner is necessary.
 
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AvNavCom said:
He rubs a lot of people (especially A&P mechanics) the wrong way since he has a low opinion of some common maintenance practices, especially those which involve hunches or tradition.
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His audience isn't A&Ps. He's more focused on non-A&P owners and pilots. Most of what he says isn't really anything new and can be found in maintenance literature dating back decades, so he doesn't offer much for knowledgeable A&Ps, but for owners looking to learn about their planes and how to do their own maintenance he can be helpful. Mike backed into this by first learning to do some of his own maintenance and eventually got his A&P ticket; he's never (AFAIK) spun wrenches for a living, but his background lets him appreciate the needs and perspectives of owners trying to work through the maze of maintenance practices and FAA regs.


Llewtrah381 said:
I still carry the subscription mainly because I do a good amount of cross country and at least want access to a list of competent A&Ps wherever I may break down.
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:yeahthat:
I have a Breakdown subscription in case of a problem at a distant airport. If I have to leave a plane somewhere and find alternate transportation home, it would be helpful to have a party like Savvy to help find a shop and manage the work.

For other stuff, I don't think they add much value, depending on the plane. I used Savvy to manage the prebuy and annual for my Beech, and I found myself providing more info to their guy than he did to me. He was knowledgeable about Cessnas and Pipers, but didn't know much about Musketeers. I received lots more advice from the Beech Aero Club folks than from him. When the first year with Savvy expired, I just dropped back to a Breakdown subscription.
 
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There’s not much that Busch teaches that you won’t find in the Light Plane Maintenance Library. Well worth buying a copy.

www.ebay.com

Light Plane Maintenance Library, 7 vols | eBay

1987 Vols 1, 2, 3 & 7. Light Plane Firewall Forward TOP END, Basic and advanced Light Plane BODY MAINTENANCE, SYSTEMS MAINTENANCE and RULES & INSPECTIONS. from 1987, 1988, 1989. Belvoir Publications Inc.
www.ebay.com
 
I like his videos. I am a subscriber and it has been beneficial to me. I dont know a lot about aircraft engines with only about 320 flight hours and 200 on my plane. I have some questions about LOP - watched his videos, and then sent the data from my g3x to his guys to check out to make sure I was doing it correctly. They answered quickly and said the data looked good and I could go a bit leaner if I wanted to but OK how I was doing it.

I also had no idea on what borescope pictures were desired or should look like. I took several and send them in and was given advice on what views I needed and that my pictures were not the best but things looked good. I will give the borescope another shot and send them in for advice.

Overall I am satisfied and will continue with my subscription. I have never taken an engine apart and dont have enough experience to know what I dont know so it is helpful to have someone to ask.
 
I see some people here referring to some things as absolutes. Knowing a bit about stats, and having an advanced math degree, I seriously doubt that MB would use the word "always" or "never" or "must". Running jugs hot is a known factor for early failure modes. I would be surprised if his statements on things like this are framed in such discreet language. I'm pretty certain from my experience with his delivery, he'll explain why some factor will cause early failure, and also how to evaluate it for avoidance of catastrophic failure.

One things I use regularly is his philosophy of the engine 'talking' to the pilot. I knew I was having a top end issue when my oil consumption increased by 30% and eventually found a scored cyl which needed to come off. And - I also doubt he would 'never remove a jug'. Jugs are put on a crankcase with bolts, studs, nuts, washers, meaning they are intended to come off for repair/replacement. However - the common maint philosophy says that in 90% of cases the jug comes off for repair/replacement, notwithstanding the issue may clear up on its own, or it may be resolved with other means, or it may be a condition that the pilot can live with if it doesn't affect safety of flight. As an example, sometimes studs leak oil from the cyl base. Sure - the engine can come off the plane, be stripped down to component parts, replace or reset the stud in question, use the proper type of sealant, or O-ring as defined, and reassemble and install the engine back on the plane. Or - it might be a lot better to use some hi temp RTV, a viton O-ring and run it like it was stripped and done right.

What potential maint faults can be introduced during a teardown, repair, and assembly? What potential material defects can be introduced during the teardown and assembly? Suppose it's an engine with a cyl base O-ring or gasket and it gets pinched/crushed on assembly? Well, pull it, teardown, fix it, assemble it and put it back on the plane.

These are the types of things that I think Mike contributes. As far as any pilot casting aspersions about HIS ego and/or personal style, well - pot meet mister kettle. I tend to rub people the wrong way sometimes, including here and here's a kind of secret. It's a feature, not a bug.:cheerswine:
 
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